


Christmas Surprises

by Magfreak



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Holidays, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-01 02:17:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13284840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magfreak/pseuds/Magfreak
Summary: A Christmas story of Tom, Sybil and their daughter Saoirse living in Boston.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Secret Santa fic for valoisqueens on tumblr. Here’s the request:  
>    
> Sybil, Tom, and Sybbie (preferably called Saoirse) and any younger children you’d like to add, are celebrating Christmas in Boston circa about 1924/5.  Characters comment on how Christmas in Boston is different from Christmas at Downton or Ireland?  What is it like for the Bransons to be immigrants? What is it like for them to be surrounded by other Irish folk but also Italians, African-Americans, Poles, Indian-Americans, Germans, Puerto Ricans, Russians, etc.; basically how do they experience their life in America in the context of America as a melting pot. Other Details/Specifics: I would love if you threw in Edith and Marigold, having them visit for the holidays, or having also moved to Boston.  Also, I’ve always kind of read Edith as a lesbian suffering from compulsory heterosexuality.
> 
> To meet the request, the setting is thus: The Bransons live in Boston’s South End, which is described thusly: Since the 1880s the South End has been characterized by its diversity, with substantial Irish, Jewish, African-American, Puerto Rican(San Juan Street area), Chinese, and Greek populations. In this story, some of Tom’s extended family live nearby, and they are surrounded by a diverse lot of neighbors, including the family with whom share the Victorian walk-up. They left Downton after their daughter, named Saoirse here, was born, so she has lived most of her life in Boston as an American. 
> 
> When the story begins, they are getting ready for a visit from Edith and Marigold, who is now 2 years old and who Sybil doesn’t know is Edith’s daughter yet.

**_December 20, 1925_ **

“I said no peeking!” Tom yelled.

“My eyes are closed!” Sybil said in a huff.

Tom hoisted his load and looked around in the small sitting room of their apartment, trying to find the best place for it.

“What’s happening?” Sybil asked, her impatience and curiosity getting the better of her. 

“Just wait!” Tom replied. 

Sybil could hear the strain his voice. _Is he lifting something?_

When Tom had left early that morning with Jose, their neighbor and friend who lived downstairs with his family, Tom promised they’d return later that day with a “big surprise,” Sybil was positively stumped as to what he could be talking about. She sensed a smell in the air, like Tom had brought the outdoors in with him, but beyond his clunking around, she had no clue.

“This is . . . well, it’s something.”

Eyes still closed, Sybil turned toward the voice that had just spoken, next to her. It was Jose’s wife and Sybil’s dear friend, Hortenzia—or, as Sybil knew her, “Ten.”

“Does it strike you as a good or bad idea?”

Ten laughed her loud, infectious laugh. “Good, I think, but messy,” she said in the accented English that Sybil had initially been hard pressed to decipher but that now was as comforting to her as the sound of her own voice. Like Sybil’s, it was foreign to the Americans who surrounded them, but in a different way. Ten was a native of Colombia, and had moved to Boston with Jose, a Puerto Rican, at nearly the same time Sybil and Tom. 

They had moved from New York City, where they’d met and spent their first years as a married couple and where Ten had worked for a time as a housekeeper for Martha. Their journey from New York to the South End of Boston had been far shorter than that of Sybil and Tom, who’d traveled across an ocean. But both were young couples with young children, interested in arts and ideas and broadening the rights and minds of their offspring. They all took to one another straight away. 

“ _Ay, Dios_!” Ten exclaimed in her native Spanish—as she was prone to do from time to time—upon seeing her husband, who followed Tom all the way into the room carrying the back of the load. “It’s big!”

Sybil jumped at the sound of moving furniture. “Can I please open my eyes now? want to see what you’re doing to my sitting room!”

Tom laughed, directing Jose to lower his end. After a bit of adjusting, satisfied that it looked about as well as it was going to for now, Tom said, “OK, open your eyes.”

Sybil did so and was met with the sight of a large, natural pine so tall that the top bentdown slightly as it pushed against the ceiling. 

Tom watched Sybil’s awed expression, unsure what to make of it. “Not exactly fit for a Downton Christmas, but it’ll do for us, don’t you think?”

Sybil turned to Tom and launched herself into him. “It’s wonderful.”

“You like it, then?” Tom said, laughing into her hair as he squeezed her tightly.

Sybil pulled away and looked at the tree again. “I love it, but darling, you didn’t have to go to all this trouble just because Edith is coming for a visit.”

“Edith is your eldest sister, yes?” Jose asked, still shaking stray pine needles from his jacket. 

“No, the eldest is Mary,” Sybil answered. “Edith is next, then me.”

“The baby of the family,” Ten said. 

Sybil smiled at her friend. “Indeed, for better and worse.”

“It’s nice that she’s coming to visit,” Ten said. “I assume you were very close.”

“To an extent. We loved and supported each other, that much is true. But to be honest, as I grew up I realized we had little in common with them. I feel closer to them now, in our correspondence, than I did in my adolescence, when little of what they were after appealed to me. Edith in particular, in her great longing for acceptance in a world I never wanted to be a part of. I am glad she is coming. I think leaving Downton will do her a world of good.” 

“Tom said she was bringing a child,” Jose said.

“Yes,” Sybil answered. “A ward my family took in. I’m not quite sure what the circumstances were.”

“Or why she’s bringing her on such a long journey,” Tom added.

“Edith has been rather unlucky in love,” Sybil said.

“I’ll say,” Tom cut in again.

Sybil shot an annoyed look at him, which made Jose laugh. “There’s a story there, I take it?”

“There is, but—“

“But she’s your sister and a sister’s trust is never to be betrayed,” Ten said quickly and seriously, leveling her own husband with her eyes.

“I suppose Edith has come to think of the child as the one she never had. I don’t mind saying she was never one to hold out much hope for herself—that’s another reason I’m glad she’s coming. I hope it means she has a more hopeful outlook.”

“We can’t wait to meet her,” Ten said with a smile, squeezing Sybil’s arm. “What time does she arrive tomorrow?”

“WHAT IS THAT!?!”

The four adults turned their heads to see that their children, Saoirse and Miguel, had run in from Saoirse’s room, where they’d been playing together, and spotted the huge tree.

“It’s our Christmas tree!” Tom said, walking over to his daughter and hoisting her up to his hip. At now five years of age, Saoirse was hardly a babe any more, but Tom hadn’t stopped spoiling her.

“But Da, how is the star going to fit on top if the top reaches the ceiling?”

“We’ll find a way,” he said, setting her down again and tickling her sides.

“Papi, did you get us a big tree too?” Miguel asked Jose eagerly.

“No, _mijo_.”

“But why!?!”

“Because this one is big enough to share!” Saoirse said, matter-of-factly.

Sybil smiled brightly, always awed by her daughter’s generous nature. “Absolutely, this shall be our tree. Why don’t you help us decorate it?”

Miguel’s eyes brightened. “Can we, mami?”

“Yes, OK,” Ten said looking to Sybil, who nodded in reassurance. “Let’s go get our stuff and you kids can do it while we sing the novena. You don’t mind hosting it tonight, do you?”

“We’d love it!” Sybil said. 

The novena was a Colombian tradition that Ten had grown up with involving a mix of prayer and song over the nine days leading up to Christmas Eve. 

Though Sybil had converted to Catholicism, she remained rather ambivalent about religion. Still, she loved how the Irish traditions brought Tom’s extended family together here in America, especially during the Christmas holidays. And Miguel and Ten had introduced the Bransons to a new perspective on the Catholic faith, given their Latin American roots. The amalgam of old world and new amid which Saoirse was growing up was exactly the kind of life Sybil had hoped her daughter would experience when she and Tom, Saoirse still only a tiny bundle in their arms, stepped onto the ship that would bring them to America.

Support from Tom’s family, and Martha’s generosity (she'd bought the house they lived in) had landed them in a comfortable home and neighborhood in Boston where the Tom continued his newspaper work and Sybil her nursing. Jose taught music at their local parish school where Saoirse and Miguel would enroll the following year. For now, they stayed home with Ten, who spoke to them both in Spanish when it was just the three of them alone. 

Between the Ten's Spanish paired with the Irish words she’d picked up from her Branson cousins, Saoirse had proven quiet adept and languages, which tickled both of her parents. Sybil in particular, who would remember long, boring sessions of French with her governess, who’d promised learning a new tongue would make Sybil a true woman of the world. Sybil had never thought of herself as such, but her daughter, even living a more humble life, was on a trajectory that might one day actually give that phrase—woman of the world—true meaning.

“Shall we go find our decorations?” Sybil asked Saoirse, after the neighbors had left. Sybil immediately started jumping up and down, then ran down the hall ahead of her mother.

“I’ll find something to secure this so it stays up—and make room for the star,” Tom said. 

“Good,” Sybil said, moving off. Before she’d gone two steps though, Tom grabbed her hand and pulled her back into him. 

“I didn’t do this for Edith.”

“What?”

“What you said earlier, about going to all this trouble because Edith was visiting? I didn’t do this for her.”

Sybil tilted her head slightly. “Why, then?”

Tom smiled. “For _you_ , of course.”

“But I—“

“You would never ask for something like this, darling, but every time we pull out that sad little plastic thing my cousin Charlie gave us I could see it. I know you don’t miss the things you never liked about Downton Abbey, but you miss it during the holidays.”

Sybil looked down and bit her lip. This much was true. She never realized it was so plain on her face, but then Tom could always read her so well. “It’s not that I don’t love our holidays here.”

“I know. There’s plenty I miss about how we grew up in Ireland, and as much as we disliked your family’s way of living . . . standing in the great room with everyone during Christmas and the servants’ ball. It was a lovely time of year. I miss it too.”

“We do have wonderful traditions here—and friends. It’s wonderful to see how different so much of the world is through the eyes of Jose, Ten and Miguel, and everyone else on the block. I wouldn’t give any of this up for anything. But I don’t want to forget where I’m from, if for no other reason than I always want to remember how far I’ve come.”

“For Saoirse too. She was born at Downton, after all. For that alone, I’ll never forget the place. If having an impractically large Christmas tree is how we teach her about your childhood, then so be it.”

Sybil laughed, then looked up again, tears in her eyes. She leaned into Tom for a long hug. “Thank you.”

“This isn’t quite like your father’s tree, but it’s . . .”

“It’s ours,” Sybil said. “And it’s perfect.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to post these nuggets as I write them. Likely two more to go. 

  ** _December 21, 1925_**

“Is that her?” Saoirse asked. 

“No, darling,” Sybil answered as she held Saoirse’s hand tightly, not wanting to lose sight of Tom, who was walking a little bit ahead of them, in the crowd at the dock where Edith’s ship had made port. 

“How about her?”

Sybil turned to see where her daughter was pointing. “No.”

“And her?”

“Darling, you don’t remember your Aunt Edith,” Sybil said. “How do you expect to recognize her?”

Saoirse shrugged. “She looks like you, doesn’t she?”

Sybil smiled. “Not quite. Though I suppose she looks like Grandmother Martha.”

“So I should look for bright red hair?”

Tom laughed. “How about we do the looking?”

Saoirse furrowed her brow in annoyance. “I’ve got eyes too, Da.”

Suddenly, Sybil gasped. “There she is!”

Tom turned, followed the direction of Sybil’s eyes and indeed, saw a smartly dressed Edith Crawley coming down the gangway. Sybil ran over to where it met the dock, leaving husband and child behind, and waving anxiously at her sister. Edith waved back and walked quickly down to greet Sybil. She seemed somewhat taken aback when Sybil jumped into an embrace, but accepted it. Even from a few yards away Tom could see that she was smiling through tears, just as he was sure Sybil, who had her back to him, was too.

Saoirse wanted to run to her mother, so eager she was to meet the aunt she didn’t remember, but Tom held her back. “Let them have their moment, darling.” He could see Sybil’s shoulders shaking in a way that suggested she wasn’t merely crying but sobbing.

After several long minutes the sisters finally pulled away and laughed at their own tears. “I don’t know what’s come over me,” Edith said. “But it’s so good to see you.” 

“I’ve always cried easily, you know that. But I don’t know that I’ve ever sobbed with happiness. I’m so happy you’re here!”

“Mummy, why are you crying?”

Sybil laughed as she wiped her eyes and looked down and Saoirse, who’d finally been allowed to catch up to her.

“Is this Saoirse? Oh, my, how you’ve grown!”

“Say, hello, to your Aunt Edith, darling! You’ve been waiting so anxiously to see her.”

Saoirse had been quite excited to see more of her mother’s side of the family, but in the moment, her shyness emerged, which Edith, of course, found rather endearing. Saoise grabbed her mother’s hand and buried her face into her side. 

“I’m sure she’ll be clinging to you in no time,” Tom said, finally approaching. “Hope you had a good trip.”

“We did, thank you, Tom. It’s good to see you again.”

Tom held out his hand and offered a warm smile, which Edith returned as the shook.

“Oh, yes,  _we_!” Sybil exclaimed. “Where is Marigold?” 

Edith turned. “Here they are now.”

Coming down the gangway now was a young woman, dressed in modest but obviously well-cared for traveling clothes and holding a small child.

“I hope it’s all right that I’ve brought help. I’ve made arrangements at a hotel—“ 

“You mean your not staying with us?” Saoirse said, previous shyness forgotten. 

Edith looked back and forth between Sybil and Tom. “We couldn’t all of us impose. I certainly didn’t want to presume.”

“Of course, but we do have the room,” Sybil said. “Rather, the building does. The apartment above us was just vacated. There’s furniture. Nothing particularly fancy, but not shabby either. You’d fit quite well and would be much closer.”

Edith felt rather overwhelmed. “Well . . .”

“Oh, please!” Saoirse replied. “It’ll be so fun for Mari-land.”

“Mari- _gold_ , darling,” Tom corrected.

Edith laughed, warmed by Saoirse’s eagerness, so like Sybil’s open, welcoming and unquestioning nature. Edith couldn’t know how Sybil would react to her secret, but she couldn’t deny that being close to the sister she missed so dearly would be welcome—and to give her own daughter a taste of life outside of Downton, where the secret made Edith feel ashamed and unwelcome on top of how out of place she’d always felt where she should have felt at home.

“Here we are, milady,” the young woman said. “The steward pointed me to where we may collect the luggage.”

“Thank you, Lily,” she said. Taking Marigold from her arms, she said, “Look Marigold, it’s your—“

“Cousin! I’m your cousin! I’m Saoirse. You said it by putting together ‘seer’ and ‘shah.’ See it’s easy! Seer-shah!”

Sybil and Tom looked at one another. “I suppose it’s OK if she calls her cousin, isn’t it?” Sybil asked.

Edith swallowed a lump in her throat. “Yes.” Bending down so that she and Marigold, still in her arms, head now on Edith’s shoulder, were level with Saoirse, she added, “Would you like to say hello, Marigold?”

The small girl, barely more than two, took her thumb out of her mouth for a quiet wave, and then put it back in. It was a small gesture, but enough to endear Saoirse, who immediately turned to her parents wide-eyed with excitement. 

“You must be exhausted,” Sybil said. “How do we pick up your things?”

“Just over there, milady,” Lily answered. 

“Oh, dear,” Sybil said with a hearty laugh, “I haven’t answered to  _milady_  in years and don’t intend to start doing so now. Edith, please don’t find this impertinent, but in my home, I’d like—Lily, is it?”

Lily bit her lip. Edith had said this might happen. “Yes, mila—I mean, yes, um. Yes.”

“Lily, I’d like you to call me Sybil, please. I do not live like my parents and got this far away from them precisely so I didn’t have to.” Turning, to Tom, she added, "This is my husband, who was our chauffeur."

He chuckled. “Tom Branson. And Tom will do fine.”

Lily shook both their hands. “Lily Idleweiss. Thank you for your hospitality. I’ll go see to the bags.” 

“I’ll help,” Tom said and the two moved off.

Edith sighed as they walked away. “I told her things would be different here. I hope it’s not overwhelming.”

Sybil laughed. “No more than it must be for you, I’m sure.” 

Edith turned to her sister. “I’m just happy to see you. There’s never a moment I’m with family that isn’t awkward for some reason, so why bother with caring about it now.”

Sybil leaned in and hugged both Edith and Marigold in her arms. “I’m so glad you’re here.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Point of clarification if the note in the first chapter didn't make it clear. Sybil and Tom left Downton Abbey for America shortly after Saoirse's uneventful birth, so she didn't know about Marigold because Gregson and the fallout of that relationship happened after they had gone.
> 
> Also, the Christmas "novena" referenced here is a tradition in South America and Colombia, where I grew up so these are references to things I remember from my own childhood.
> 
> Lastly, the final element of the request (that Edith is a lesbian) is hinted at in this chapter.

 

**_December 22, 1925_ **

_Ven, ven, ven  
Ven a nuestras almas, Jesus._

_Ven, ven ven, ven._

_Ven a nuestras almas, Jesus._

_Ven, ven ven, ven._

_Ven a nuestras almas._

_No tardes tanto,_

_No tardes tanto,_

_Jesus, ven, ven._

Edith lifted her hands to clap after the children, accompanied by Jose in his guitar, finished the call-and-response song that was part of the night's "novena," but Sybil gently grabbed her hands and brought them back down to her lap.

"It's a prayer," Sybil whispered with a smile, "even if very enthusiastically prayed."

"Oh," Edith responded quietly, looking around. Nobody among the score of people gathered had noticed her slight faux-pas in any case.

The chairs in the sitting room had been arranged in a circle and were full with neighbors and family (from Tom's side) who had come over for the novena. Jose, Ten, and the seven children present were sitting on the floor by the now decorated Christmas tree. Marigold was between Saoirse and Miguel and was granted the great privilege by Saoirse of holding the tambourine for the song. She'd seemed overwhelmed at first, but by the end her expression settled into something Edith recognized as contentment—in so far as a little one could be.

Ten rose up to her knees and read from her prayer book, the final prayer of the evening. She read first in Spanish, then English.

Then the crowd said, "Amen," and before Edith realized what was happening Sybil was taking her arm and guiding her to the door, so they could say their goodbyes together as the crowd dispersed.

The night before, after it was decided that Edith, Marigold and Lily would stay in the walk-up's currently vacant third floor apartment, Tom and Sybil let them settle in and rest from the long journey. Tonight, though, the Bransons insisted on their presence for the novena. For Edith, it provided a glimpse of the life her sister and her husband had made for themselves and how far—literally and figuratively—Sybil had gone away from the life she'd known growing up. Despite her lack of understanding of the tradition itself, however, Edith felt a warmth and kinship that she didn't always feel back at Downton.

"So do all Catholics do this?" Edith asked, about an hour later, sitting in the kitchen drinking tea with Sybil. The guests had gone and the children had been tucked into bed.

"No, the novena is a South tradition," Sybil replied. "It's something Ten did as a child growing up that her family continued to do even after they'd moved to New York."

"I'm afraid I didn't follow it much, but the children seemed to have fun."

Sybil chuckled. "Ten translates as best she can, but there's not much to it really. It's a reflection of Joseph and Mary's journey to Bethlehem and the birth of Jesus. Saoirse could sing the song long before she knew what any of it meant. Tom and I aren't particularly strict with her so far as her religious education goes, but I do like that this is meant to bring neighbors together."

"it was nice of Saoirse to ask if Marigold could sit with the children. She hasn't had many playmates."

Sybil watched Edith closely for a moment. "May I ask why you brought her here?"

Edith stiffened. "If you—"

Sybil quickly put her hand over Edith's. "She is most welcome here for as long as you want to stay. Please don't think the question is meant to suggest otherwise. I just wondered . . . you told me in your letters that the family had taken in a ward, and I just wondered. You seem rather attached to her."

Edith looked down but didn't say anything.

"Edith, you know you can tell me anything."

Edith ran her finger along the edge of her teacup. Sybil watched, feeling a wave of concern come over her. Edith looked up finally with tears in her eyes. "She's mine."

"What?"

"Marigold. She's my daughter."

Sybil was floored. "Edith! But . . . I don't understand."

"You remember the editor that I wrote you about."

Sybil nodded.

Edith shrugged her shoulders.

"And he died?" Sybil asked quietly.

Edith nodded. "It would have been complicated even if he hadn't. I was a fool—"

"Edith, you're a human person. You're only a fool only in so far as we are all fools in love."

Edith sighed. "I don't know if it was love, is the thing. He liked me, and I suppose I liked that. The truth is Sybil I don't know that I'm built for marriage. Relationships have always been so fraught for me, and when I was young I spent so many nights wondering why that was. Marigold came along and . . . I just want to provide for her. I don't much care about anything else. Even if no one knows I'm her mother."

"Does anyone know?"

"Aunt Rosamund and granny for sure. Mama seems to have guessed but never asked me one way or the other. Perhaps she didn't want me to confirm so as to save herself from the true disappointment."

Sybil, who hadn't let go Edith's hand all this time, squeezed it again. "You can live on your own terms you know. You said that Gregson left you the means to do so. Why not start now?"

"You mean here?"

"Of course, here!"

"But Sybil . . ."

"What exactly is left for you at home?"

Edith thought for a moment. She didn't have an answer to that question.

"Look, darling," Sybil said. "I would never presume to tell anyone how to live their lives, and you have my support no matter what you decide, but you are the master of your own fate—yours and Marigold's. Where you think you would both be happiest is where you should be."

"Thank you," Edith said.

The sisters stood and hugged. After Sybil cleared their tea service, she walked Edith back upstairs where Edith found Lily sitting reading next to a sleeping Marigold in one of the apartment's three bedrooms. She stood from the chair in the corner of the small space as Edith walked in.

"She went down easy as pie, milady. She seems very comfortable here. And, well, the event this evening likely wore her out more than normal. It seemed like a lively affair in any case."

Edith kneeled down by her sleeping daughter and watched her chest rise and fall.

"You seem more comfortable here too, if you don't mind me saying milady."

The words took Edith out of her reverie. "I'm sorry," she said, standing. "I should have asked if you wanted to come too. That was thoughtless of me."

"It's all right. It was a family affair."

"You care for for us so well. It was ungenerous of me not to think of it, especially when I've made you come all this way during Christmas."

"I told you I wanted to come," Lily said with a small smile. "I don't have much in the way of family, milady."

"And about that. I won't pretend that I'm so free as Sybil, but since she insists on you calling her by her given name, well, you should do the same with me. It's all pretense, anyway. I've hardly proven myself a lady."

Realizing just how open she was being, Edith felt momentarily embarrassed. Lily noticed the blush come over Edith's cheek and bit her lip slightly to keep herself from smiling. Always observant, she had guessed from the moment she came into Edith's employ, many months ago, after Marigold began living at the house full time, that she was Edith's child, but she was not one for judgment and had taken to Edith. She liked the idea of helping a woman that, despite the privileges life had given her, seemed to need help.

The two help each other's gaze for a long time. Marigold shifting in her sleep broke the spell. Edith felt her blush deepen and, feeling awkward, moved to step away but only managed to trip and fall into Lily, who caught her.

"Thank you," Edith whispered and righted herself.

"You're welcome," Lily whispered back.

Later, when she was along in her bed, Edith wondered how it was that her heart still beat so fast. How an incidental touch had seemed to affect her more than many other touches over the course of her life had.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final two vignettes for this little extended drabble. Hope you enjoyed this peek into Tom and Sybil's life in Boston and the start of the rest of Edith's life. Thanks for reading and let me know what you think!

 

**December 24, 1925**

"Are you awake?" Sybil whispered into Tom's ear, while the two were still in bed in the early morning of Christmas Eve. "Tom, are you awake?"

Tom opened one eye. "No, I'm not."

Sybil laughed. "Oh, come on. You're not snoring. That means you're awake."

"Thanks to my early riser wife."

Sybil smiled as he shifted toward her so she could snuggle into him. "Good morning and Happy Christmas Eve!"

Sybil looked up when he didn't respond, and she saw that he'd closed his eyes again and his breathing was evening out, suggesting he was very close to going back to sleep.

"Darling!"

"Sybil, I woke before the sun for my entire life before coming to this country, which has afforded me the freedom to sleep in even if only on the rarest occasions. Christmas Eve is one such occasion. Are you really going to take that away from me?"

"Are you really going to be so dramatic about it?"

Tom couldn't help but laugh.

"It's just going to be a long, loud day with lots of people, and I thought we take advantage of the calm before the storm to talk."

Tom quickly rolled over so that he was on top of her, before Sybil knew it, and started kissing her neck. "OK, I'm awake, but must talking really be part of the plan?"

Sybil giggled and sighed but still managed to say, "Yes!"

"Fine," Tom said, rolling over again and snuggling them up as they were before. "What's on your mind, darling."

"Well," Sybil said, drawing the word out. "Two things."

"First?"

"Do you suppose Edith could be happy here if she were to stay, you know, permanently?"

The question surprised Tom. "Does she want to?"

"I think she's considering it. She's never been particularly happy at Downton. Even you noticed that."

"But is she going to be happy here? What is she going to do? We don't exactly observe high tea every afternoon."

"I'm not sure, but she has enough to at least figure it out. And she's different. She's grown."

"What about Marigold?"

Sybil bit her lip. "Well . . ."

"She's Edith's, isn't she?"

Sybil sat up. "How did you guess?"

Tom sat up too and scratched his head. "It's not really so difficult to figure out. Nor that uncommon, really."

Sybil sighed. "That's part of it, too, I suppose. I think she has the notion that here, she can truly be her daughter's mother in a way she couldn't back at Downton."

"Lord knows, the child is less likely to be cast out here for having been born outside of wedlock. And she'll have an eager playmate in Saoirse." Tom leaned over and kissed Sybil gently. "I'm happy to support her in whatever she wants to do, especially knowing how it'll rankle your father."

Sybil laughed. "You're incorrigible."

"I get it from you."

With that Tom shifted to the side of the bed and began looking for his slippers on the floor to get up for the day.

"Aren't you going to ask me what the other thing is?" Sybil asked.

"What?"

"I said I wanted to talk about two things just now. Edith was one."

"So what's the other?"

"I'm pregnant."

—

Upstairs, Edith had been awake for some time, but was just now pulling on her dressing gown, lured out of her room by the smell of coffee. Back at home, she'd never have left her room in this state, having just woken in and still in her night clothes. But something about being so far away from there—in this new place where so many of the rules didn't apply, where she didn't feel trapped—had unwound Edith in a way she had never expected.

It wasn't the this tiny little apartment didn't merit the decorum of her family, although she supposed that much was true. It was that the apartment didn't _require_ decorum of her, and Edith was quickly coming to find that she could do without it. This life may have been lacking in the niceties and comforts of the old ways, but there was an ease to it here that she knew she would like.

Edith found Lily sitting in the small cramped kitchen, sipping her coffee and having set another cup in front of the only other chair at the table. (They'd have to buy a third for Marigold, Edith thought.)

"I took the liberty of pouring it for you when I heard you coming," Lily said.

"It's certainly too small a place for secrets," Edith said. "We'll have to keep that in mind."

"So you've decided to stay for certain, then?"

Edith nodded, not realizing that she was smiling at the idea.

"It'll need some better furnishings, no doubt about that, but I think it'll do nicely."

Lily's words warmed Edith. It pleased her to know that she had someone with whom she could make plans. "Are you really sure you want to stay as well?"

Lily nodded. "If you're sure you want me to stay."

Edith nodded again.

She wasn't sure who put her hand on the table first, but in a moment, their hands were both there, touching first, then intertwined.

The same electricity that Edith had felt before was back and stronger.

It was something new. A beginning.


End file.
